IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cep/cepdps/dp0474.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Unemployment Dynamics, Duration and Equilibrium: Evidence from Britain

Author

Listed:
  • Simon Burgess
  • H Turon

Abstract

This paper challenges the consensus on the nature of unemployment dynamics in Britain. We show that the argument that changes in unemployment arise mostly from changes in the duration of unemployment (rather than in the chance of becoming unemployed) is flawed. In fact, while shocks to the outflow do have a part to play up to the late 1970s, the huge changes in unemployment over the last two decades have been mostly driven by inflow shocks. Our model also provides a new explanation of aggregate unemployment persistence based on externalities at a market level rather than individual-level persistence.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon Burgess & H Turon, 2000. "Unemployment Dynamics, Duration and Equilibrium: Evidence from Britain," CEP Discussion Papers dp0474, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    • Handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp0474
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/DP0474.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Burgess, Simon M., 1994. "Matching models and labour market flows," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(3-4), pages 809-816, April.
    2. Abbring, Jaap H & van den Berg, Gerard J & van Ours, Jan C, 2001. "Business Cycles and Compositional Variation in U.S. Unemployment," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 19(4), pages 436-448, October.
    3. Burgess, Simon M, 1992. "A Search Model with Job Changing Costs: 'Eurosclerosis' and Unemployment," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 44(1), pages 75-88, January.
    4. Bean, Charles R, 1994. "European Unemployment: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 32(2), pages 573-619, June.
    5. Burda, Michael & Wyplosz, Charles, 1994. "Gross worker and job flows in Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 1287-1315, June.
    6. Mortensen, Dale & Pissarides, Christopher, 2011. "Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Theory of Unemployment," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 1-19.
    7. Patricia M. Anderson & Simon M. Burgess, 1995. "Empirical Matching Functions: Estimation and Interpretation Using Disaggregate Data," NBER Working Papers 5001, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Burgess, Simon & Lane, Julia & Stevens, David, 2000. "Job Flows, Worker Flows, and Churning," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 473-502, July.
    9. van den Berg, Gerard J & van Ours, Jan C, 1996. "Unemployment Dynamics and Duration Dependence," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(1), pages 100-125, January.
    10. Darby, Michael R & Haltiwanger, John C & Plant, Mark W, 1985. "Unemployment Rate Dynamics and Persistent Unemployment under Rational Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 614-637, September.
    11. Machin, Stephen & Manning, Alan, 1999. "The causes and consequences of longterm unemployment in Europe," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 47, pages 3085-3139, Elsevier.
    12. Burgess, Simon & Profit, Stefan, 2001. "Externalities in the matching of workers and firms in ritain," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 313-333, June.
    13. Abbring, Jaap H. & Berg, Gerard J. van den & Ours, Jan C. van, 1997. "Business cycles and compositional variation in U.S. unemployment," Serie Research Memoranda 0020, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    14. Karanassou, Marika & Snower, Dennis J, 1998. "How Labour Market Flexibility Affects Unemployment: Long-Term Implications of the Chain Reaction Theory," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(448), pages 832-849, May.
    15. Layard, Richard & Nickell, Stephen & Jackman, Richard, 2005. "Unemployment: Macroeconomic Performance and the Labour Market," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199279173.
    16. Steven J. Davis & John Haltiwanger, 1990. "Gross Job Creation and Destruction: Microeconomic Evidence and Macroeconomic Implications," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1990, Volume 5, pages 123-186, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Robertson, Donald & Symons, James, 2000. "Factor residuals in SUR regressions: estimating panels allowing for cross sectional correlation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20163, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Burgess, Simon M, 1993. "A Model of Competition between Unemployed and Employed Job Searchers: An Application to the Unemployment Outflow Rate in Britain," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(420), pages 1190-1204, September.
    19. Nickell, S J, 1985. "The Determinants of Equilibrium Unemployment in Britain: A Reply," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 95(377), pages 196-198, March.
    20. Abbring, Jaap H. & van den Berg, Gerard J. & van Ours, Jan C., 2002. "The anatomy of unemployment dynamics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(10), pages 1785-1824, December.
    21. Marek Dabrowski & Stanislaw Gomulka & Jacek Rostowski, 2001. "Whence reform? A critique of the stiglitz perspective," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(4), pages 291-324.
    22. Steven J. Davis & John Haltiwanger, 1992. "Gross Job Creation, Gross Job Destruction, and Employment Reallocation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 819-863.
    23. Hélène Turon, 2003. "Inflow Composition, Duration Dependence and their Impact on the Unemployment Outflow Rate," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(1), pages 31-47, February.
    24. Oliver Jean Blanchard & Peter Diamond, 1990. "The Cyclical Behovior of the Gross Flows of U.S. Workers," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 21(2), pages 85-156.
    25. Price, Simon, 1985. "The Determinants of Equilibrium Unemployment in Britain: A Comment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 95(377), pages 189-195, March.
    26. Mortensen, Dale T., 1994. "The cyclical behavior of job and worker flows," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 1121-1142, November.
    27. Junankar, P N & Price, Simon, 1984. "The Dynamics of Unemployment: Structural Change and Unemployment Flows," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 94(376a), pages 158-165, Supplemen.
    28. Bell, Brian & Nickell, Stephen & Quintini, Glenda, 2002. "Wage equations, wage curves and all that," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 341-360, July.
    29. Lancaster, Tony, 1979. "Econometric Methods for the Duration of Unemployment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(4), pages 939-956, July.
    30. Patricia M. Anderson & Simon M. Burgess, 2000. "Empirical Matching Functions: Estimation and Interpretation Using State-Level Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(1), pages 93-102, February.
    31. Burgess, Simon M, 1992. "The Flow into Unemployment in Britain," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 102(413), pages 888-895, July.
    32. Nickell, Stephen & Nunziata, Luca, 2000. "Employment patterns in OECD countries," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20198, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    33. Nickell, Stephen, 1998. "Unemployment: Questions and Some Answers," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(448), pages 802-816, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stephen Redding & Mercedes Vera-Martin, 2006. "Factor Endowments and Production in European Regions," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 142(1), pages 1-32, April.
    2. Ponomareva, Natalia & Sheen, Jeffrey, 2013. "Australian labor market dynamics across the ages," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 453-463.
    3. Muriel Dejemeppe & Yves Saks, 2002. "A New Light into Regional Unemployment Disparities in Belgium : Longitudinal Analysis of Grouped Duration Data," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2002019, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    4. Burgess, Simon & Profit, Stefan, 2001. "Externalities in the matching of workers and firms in ritain," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 313-333, June.
    5. Overman, Henry G., 2000. "Neighbourhood effects in small neighbourhoods," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20139, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. French, Stephen & Kubo, Katsuyuki & Marsden, David, 2000. "Why does performance pay de-motivate: financial incentives versus performance appraisal," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 3639, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Turon, Helene & Simon Burgess, 2003. "Unemployment equilibrium and on-the-job search," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2003 208, Royal Economic Society.
    8. C Dougherty, 2000. "Numeracy, Literacy and Earnings: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth," CEP Discussion Papers dp0478, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    9. Alan Manning, 2006. "A Generalised Model of Monopsony," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(508), pages 84-100, January.
    10. Daniel Sturm, 2006. "Product standards, trade disputes, and protectionism," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 39(2), pages 564-581, May.
    11. Burgess, Simon & Turon, Hélène, 2010. "Worker flows, job flows and unemployment in a matching model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 393-408, April.
    12. Di Liberto, Adriana, 2008. "Education and Italian regional development," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 94-107, February.
    13. Gilles Duranton & V Monastiriotis, 2000. "Mind the Gaps: the Evolution of Regional Inequalities in the UK, 1982-1997," CEP Discussion Papers dp0485, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    14. Manfred Keil & Donald Robertson & James Symons, 2001. "Minimum Wages and Employment," CEP Discussion Papers dp0497, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    15. Vincenzo Cassino & Michael Joyce, 2003. "Forecasting inflation using labour market indicators," Bank of England working papers 195, Bank of England.
    16. Brian Bell & James Smith, 2002. "On gross worker flows in the United Kingdom: evidence from the Labour Force Survey," Bank of England working papers 160, Bank of England.
    17. P Willman, 2000. "The Viability of Trade Union Organisation: A Bargaining Unit Analysis," CEP Discussion Papers dp0477, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    18. Stanislaw Gomulka, 2000. "Pension Problems and Reforms in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania," CEP Discussion Papers dp0480, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    19. Stephen Nickell & Patricia Jones & Glenda Quintini, 2002. "A Picture of Job Insecurity Facing British Men," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(476), pages 1-27, January.
    20. Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf, 2003. "Benefit duration and unemployment entry: A quasi-experiment in Austria," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 259-273, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bruce Fallick & Charles A. Fleischman, 2004. "Employer-to-employer flows in the U.S. labor market: the complete picture of gross worker flows," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-34, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Bruce Fallick & Charles A. Fleischman, 2001. "The importance of employer-to-employer flows in the U.S. labor market," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2001-18, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Burgess, Simon & Turon, Hélène, 2010. "Worker flows, job flows and unemployment in a matching model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 393-408, April.
    4. Eriksson, Stefan & Gottfries, Nils, 2005. "Ranking of job applicants, on-the-job search, and persistent unemployment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 407-428, June.
    5. Turon, Helene & Simon Burgess, 2003. "Unemployment equilibrium and on-the-job search," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2003 208, Royal Economic Society.
    6. Ravi Balakrishnan, 2001. "The interaction of firing costs and on-the-job search: an application of a search theoretic model to the Spanish labour market," Working Papers 0102, Banco de España.
    7. Aki Kangasharju & Jaakko Pehkonen & Sari Pekkala, 2003. "Matching in thin labour markets: panel data evidence from Finland, 1991-2002," ERSA conference papers ersa03p208, European Regional Science Association.
    8. Guido Imbens & Lisa Lynch, 2006. "Re-employment probabilities over the business cycle," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 5(2), pages 111-134, August.
    9. Kalwij, Adriaan, 2001. "Individuals' Unemployment Experiences: Heterogeneity and Business Cycle Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 370, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Shibata, Ippei, 2022. "Reassessing classification errors in the analysis of labor market dynamics," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    11. Ravi Balakrishnan & Claudio Michelacci, 1998. "Unemployment Dynamics Across OECD Countries," Working Papers wp1998_9806, CEMFI.
    12. van den Berg, Gerard J. & van der Klaauw, Bas, 2001. "Combining micro and macro unemployment duration data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 271-309, June.
    13. Adriaan Kalwij, 2010. "Unemployment durations and the pattern of duration dependence over the business cycle of British males," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 429-456, April.
    14. Ochsen, Carsten, 2008. "How the distribution of unemployment by duration affects the unemployment rate," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 88, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.
    15. Berg, Gerard J. van den & Klaauw, Bas van der, 1998. "Combining micro and macro unemployment data," Serie Research Memoranda 0041, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    16. Bart Cockx & Muriel Dejemeppe, 2005. "Duration dependence in the exit rate out of unemployment in Belgium. Is it true or spurious?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(1), pages 1-23, January.
    17. Jouko Verho, 2005. "Unemployment Duration and Business Cycles in Finland," Working Papers 214, Työn ja talouden tutkimus LABORE, The Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE.
    18. Andersson, Fredrik, 1999. "Job flows in Swedish manufacturing 1972-1996," Working Paper Series 1999:4, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    19. Karsten Albæk & Henrik Hansen, 2004. "The Rise in Danish Unemployment: Reallocation or Mismatch?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 66(4), pages 515-536, September.
    20. Michael W. L. Elsby & Bart Hobijn & Ayşegül Şahin, 2013. "Unemployment Dynamics in the OECD," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(2), pages 530-548, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Unemployment dynamics; unemployment duration; unemployment flows; nonlinear dynamics; persistence;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp0474. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/discussion-papers/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.